A spotlight on our rising star

I have the honor and privilege of sharing with you the beautiful, soothing, and inspirational voice of our very own risingstar, Sheri. I was so moved by her song that I asked her if she would participate in a short interview to tell us a little about herself as a singer.

MARIA: Sheri, who is singing the harmony with you on this soundtrack?
SHERI: The harmony is me! After recording the melody line, I wanted to add 3 different tones of harmony. So after the melody line was laid (me), the already recorded music was played back to me as I added one line of harmony and then the process was repeated until it was were I wanted it in terms of harmony and overall sound.
The track has absolutely nobody singing on the track but myself. Doing tracks this way is a long tedious process of laying one track on top of the other until what you have in the end is what sounds like one song being sung by several folks involved.

MARIA: Sheri, have you ever sung professionally?
SHERI: I have sung for weddings, mostly friends of mine or friend of a friend kind of thing. I did get paid to sing so I guess that does qualify as a job, doesn't it? LOL
I've also won a couple Karaoke contests over the years.

I remember when I was a teenager, my parents would take me to band tryouts in our area in eastern Iowa and came close to getting some gigs until they found out I was too young to get into bars. But at that time music was such a personal thing to me. I wasn’t ready to share it with anyone and my dad didn’t understand that then. I still remember him hollering how I had talent enough to not have to work a labor job like he did and he'd mimic holding a microphone and say ".....this could be your job!!" But as a teenager, music was my "constant" in my life....something that was all mine. I actually wrote a song at 16 that I still to this day remember! It’s the only one I ever wrote and I wrote in like 15 minutes! I would like to one day put it to music.
MARIA: Have you ever received formal voice training?
SHERI: No, not at all. I started out mimicking the radio like I think most kids do. I would spend an exorbitant amount of time in my room with my microphone (my brush! LOL) and stereo cranked up high. The when I got into high school, I made sure I was always in chorus classes of some sort and that helped by way of learning how to breathe right but I never learned to read music as I was only interested in the singing part of it. I regret not paying attention when it came to learning to read music now though, lol.
It's strange how being a grown up now still doesn't change the dream though....many things have changed by way of hopes and dreams as I grew and matured but music as I say, always remained a "constant". But let’s face it, the music biz is all about who you know and the opportunities that come your way. I'm too old for American Idol, or you can bet I would have camped out there just for the chance to possibly get chosen! But I'm a mom first and foremost, raising decent human beings is very important to me so the trade-off definitely lessoned the sting of achieving the unrequainted dream, so to speak lol. But at the end of the day, nothing soothes my soul more than a warm bubble bath while listening to some great ballads. Ballads have always been my songs of choice as they contain so much strength and emotion.
What can I say, I love music. It’s the only thing I was ever any good at.
MARIA: How did you decide on the username risingstar11111?
SHERI: Well, about 12 yrs ago, My step-sister insisted that I have some sort of communication if I should ever break down while driving, as at the time, I had to drive quite some distance on the interstate to get to babysitters and work and she worried that if I should break down late at night, (I was working second shift at the time) I would have to be at the mercy of passing motorists, so I agreed to let her boyfriend install a CB radio. I was asked to come up with a call name (handle), and as I drove home from work that night I was looking up at the star-filled sky as I always had and had originally come up with the name "Starfire" but there was already someone in the area with that handle so my sister suggested "Risingstar" as I always dreamed that one day I would be rubbing elbows with Reba McEntire, Dolly Parton, Faith Hill and so on. I was afraid that it made me sound arrogant but she talked me into it in the end.
MARIA: Thanks Sheri for sharing with us. You are our rising star indeed!